Just another blog from a thirtysomething sociology, comic book and video game nerd. Make yourself comfortable under my corner of sky. Minority culture to Zombie Apocalypses- its all game here.

Survivors

Combating Dystopia.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Mississippi still racist. In Other News? Water is still wet.

The fine folks of Mississippi's Republican Party, when polled (N=440) about politics and social issues expressed that 46% of them would prefer interracial marriage be illegal. Not shocking, but the implications are telling all the same...

Q14 Do you think interracial marriage should belegal or illegal?Legal40%...............................................................46%Illegal ..............................................................Not sure 14%

Well, it just confirms the idea that unsurprisingly entire pockets of the deep south have through sheer force of will have managed to avoid reality and modernity. It further underscores a much more important idea: that left to popular vote, the ability or right for interracial couples to marry whom the see fit would- if 46% of the sample had its way, be illegal. The collective rights of the American people should never be left up to the musings of a popular vote, as the old biases tend to be pervasive regardless of whether or not we naively expect others to do the "right thing". The "Will of the People"(tm) is not always right or fair. It was, after all, only 1967 when Loving v. the Supreme Court of Virginia decided that Interracial marriage ought to be decriminalized. There are more than one types of American culture, some of which exist in the present, some of which pine for the days past. These sort of intra-generational divides I have a feeling will grow more pronounced as the Baby Boom generation advances. Gay marriage, interracial marriage, the sudden and xenophobic fear of all things sharia...all growing pains social conservatives can't bring themselves get out of the past long enough to see clearly... and seem desperate to counteract at the cost of the liberties of others.

(And the always great Arcade Fire, for your reading and listening pleasure. )

Honorable Mention.

"Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit social convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others."- Coretta Scott King

"So, what have we learned? We have learned the first lesson. They will always hate us...we must give ordinary humans respect, compliance and understanding. And we must never mistake that for trust." Emma Frost, Astonishing X-Men #1

"I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids-I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. " Ralph Ellison

"The X-men will continue to fight for a word that fears and hates them...but we will never be victims again." - Cyclops- Uncanny X-Men #1